5, Lafcadio Hearn spoke to an old man of those who would never
return. "Probably the Western people believe," answered the old man,
"that the dead never return. There are no Japanese dead who do not
return. There are none who do not know the way." It is a poor,
emasculated religion that does not believe that. When at the last the
bugles call in the quiet evening ... they will come back. They will
come crowned with glory and honour and immortality--with that victory
which overcometh the world. Let the blinds be rolled up, and the
windows be all flung open to the light.

VI

The Cities of the Plain

VI

It was the old clerk, of whose services and devotion to our parish I
have previously written, who gave the Biblical name to the little
village that lies near the boundary of the great city that is steadily
creeping towards us, and ever threatening to engulf us. Its own name
is singularly pleasant to the ear and redolent of the sound of running
waters, but it is unnecessary to burden the memory with it. Though it
is now many years ago, I remember, as it were yesterday, the first time
I heard the word on the old clerk's lips. I was sitting warming myself
by the fire in the ticket-collector's office. The ticket-collector was
ostensibly waiting to provide tickets, but as everybody in our parish
has a season ticket, that part of his duty is almost a sinecure.

Thus it happens that the ticket-collector has leisure, just before the
trains pass through, to give his friends the fruits of his researches
in the realms of philosophy. That particular day he was speaking of
the changes he had seen. "I was brought up," said he, closing his
argument, "on the Shorter Catechism and porridge. I dinna haud any
longer by the Catechism, but I havena lost my faith in porridge."

It was then that the clink of coppers was heard on the sill of the
ticket window. In the aperture was framed the face of the clerk, with
the trimmed grey beard and the small twinkling eyes. He held three
pennies deftly in his thumbless hand. "Return, Sodom," said he. The
ticket-collector pushed back his cap, stretched out his right hand as
if he were beginning to speak, then thought better of it. Out of his
case, without a word, he produced a return ticket for Sodom, clinked it
in his machine, and passed it through the window. The old clerk
received it with a grim chuckle.

Away below the bridge there came a rumble. "Train," said th